The new Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) of the National Institute of Oceanographic and Applied Geophysics (OGS), acquired within the IPANEMA project, funded under the NOP – National Operating Programme for Research and Innovation 2014-2020 with resources from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), has recently joined the organisation’s fleet. OGS is now the first research organisation in Italy to have this state-of-the-art underwater robot for scientific research (only the Italian Navy has similar vehicles). It complements the instrumentation of the ECCSEL NatLab-Italy laboratory, a permanent infrastructure that is available to the national and international scientific community.
The robot, worth over €4 million euros, aims to study the sea and seabed from an oceanographic and geophysical point of view. Besides being capable of operating down to 3000 metres of depth, providing data with a higher resolution than would be possible with conventional systems from the surface, the numerous environmental sensors onboard will make it a genuine autonomous underwater laboratory. The data collected will allow numerous studies to be carried out, ranging from the analysis and monitoring of the volcanic systems in the area to the study of the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, analysing in detail the mechanisms of ocean acidification.
The first tests in the waters off the Sicilian coasts have been recently completed with support of the Capitaneria di Porto of Milazzo. The funcionality of the vehicle were checked and data from the various sensors were calibrated. The data obtained during the operations will be analysed in the new OGS laboratories in Milazzo, which were inaugurated a few weeks ago.
